Lesson One: Singing

I love to sing. Many of my extended family members love to sing. In fact, we have group sing-songs at my cottage...think guitars, song-books, and beer. Some of us have beautiful singing voices, and can harmonize and change keys seemingly effortlessly...others of us are not so blessed. Thankfully, it is a very inclusive environment, and no one minds if I'm a little bit off. I also make up for it by knowing most of the words and loving every minute of it. However, I thought this was an area that I could work on my learning to love learning, since I already love singing.

Looking back, this may be a bit of cheat; I think I actually took singing lessons in my 30th year (before I actually turned 30). Perhaps the singing lessons were part of what launched me on this quest, I can't really remember anymore. Regardless, I DID take singing lessons!

I signed up for an 8-week group class through the Royal Conservatory of Music. The instructor was a trained opera singer (aren't they all?), and she encouraged us to discover our head voices: "sing like Miss Piggy! You'll feel silly, but you'll sound much better afterwards!" And she was right. We did all kinds of singing in groups, including singing in rounds and, yes, harmonizing. As well, we each prepared a solo, which we worked on (briefly) each week. The instructor (whose name I can't recall at the moment) encouraged us to choose something that was challenging and also meant something to us personally. I selected "Out on the Mira", which is a beautiful song about a river in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia (I was born in NS); we also, of course, sing "Out on the Mira" at my cottage sing-songs.

Each week, I had to stand up in front of the class and sing my song, accompanied on piano; the instructor then gave notes. Mostly, she told me to enunciate more and access my head voice ("sing like Miss Piggy!"). This wasn't too difficult for me: the class was full of non-singers, and I didn't know any of them, so I didn't feel overly self-conscious. And we all felt silly singing like Miss Piggy.

For the final week, we planned a little recital of our best group pieces and everyone's solos. My classmates had invited guests to come, which made it a little bit more nerve-wracking; I didn't invite anyone, not wanting to invite my family to watch me learning something new. Before my solo, I was a slightly nervous, but I felt fairly under control. I started singing, and it was sounding okay to me...a little bit of Miss Piggy,  but not too much. I was breathing in the right places, and trying to enunciate (always a challenge). I reached the last chorus, and I suddenly got choked up...I hadn't been to Nova Scotia in a few years, and I guess the high emotions of performing brought it out. Anyhow, I had to sing the last chorus twice in order to get it all out, but the audience gave me a huge round of applause at the end.

So the singing lessons went fairly well. I didn't manage to invite anyone I knew, but there were other people watching. I haven't gone back for more (it's expensive!!!), but I do continue to sing in the usual ways...and I try to remember Miss Piggy.